


Sunspark: a tale from Arrowfall's Tribe

by MrsGrizzley



Category: Elfquest
Genre: Alternate Wolfriders, Arrowfall's Tribe, F/M, Original Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:38:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsGrizzley/pseuds/MrsGrizzley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arrowfall's Tribe is my creation, set within the world of Elfquest.  This is the story of Sunspark, who has lost all brightness.  This is also an illustration, of sorts, of an old quandary in the fandom.  We always knew the answer, but never really explored the cost of survival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Leaf was booooaaaaaaard.

He had barely a hand and one of turns and he was not so skilled as his mother for finding his own entertainment. At least, the entertainment he found was not always the entertainment she would have liked for him to find.

This particular day he had driven his mother past distraction and she had banished him from the den lest he ruin yet another set of leathers that she was stitching into clothes for the tribe. This was after he had spilled her bowl of decorative seeds. And the bowls of powdered colors.

He kicked absently at a rock at the base of the Mother Tree and watched it roll over to where one of the hunters sat sharpening her spear. He frowned in sudden curiosity. The hunter was one he had seen each and every day of his short life. He walked over to her with the innocent assurance of cublinghood.

She looked up at him from her task, tilting her head slightly, to meet his grey-blue eyes with her brown ones. The cub had bright red-gold hair, like the leaves in the fading of the turn. The huntress' hair was plain brown, like tree bark. Her clothes, though, were in all shades of yellow and gold. Her face didn't mirror the brightness of her leathers.

"Why don't you smile?" the cub asked bluntly. Other adults smiled when he asked blunt questions, without preamble. The huntress did not. She also didn't answer. "Don't you know how to smile?"

She sighed. "I know how, cubling. I do not feel like it."

The cub blinked in surprise. He was the only cub in the tribe and all the adults smiled at him, and often. He could not imagine anyone not wanting to smile. He smiled all the time. At the trees. At the bugs. At the leaves when the wind carried them like they could fly. When he stood on a branch with his arms outstretched, wishing he could fly, too. "Howcum?"

She merely shrugged silently. "It does not matter, cubling. I do not find anything worth smiling about." She looked at the cub for only a moment longer. "And you are being sought by your mother."

He turned in surprise and saw that his mother had emerged from the den and was looking for him. He knew that look on her face. She had something for him to do and he wasn't going to enjoy it. He turned the other direction and fled.

He didn't look back to see the very small twitch to the huntress' lips. It wasn't a smile, but it was closer than he would have ever seen.

The huntress watched Leaf run off to find mischief somewhere his mother didn't want him to be and sighed in momentary envy. Time was, she had dreamed of cubs of her own, but that was a long time ago, when her world was brighter and smiles came easily and often.

Her tribename was Sunspark, but she had long since lost any brightness. She had seen cubs born and grow to hunters and she had watched too many of them die. Maybe Leaf would be one of the lucky ones to grow and have a cub of his own. She hoped so.

She hadn't always been silent. She hadn't always been somber. Once upon a time she had laughed and dreamed and loved among the trees of the Forest. But that was a very long time ago.

\---

Arms wrapped themselves around her waist and Sunspark laughed as she turned to see who had distracted her from shaping a branch into a shaft for a new spear. "Oak!"

Oak smiled to see her joy. He could still remember her as a cub, serious to a fault, until the day he had taught her to smile, and since that day she had not stopped.

She had been the one to inform him that she was more than enough of an adult for what they both wanted, and she was the one who had moved her things from her parent's den and into his. Friends had become lovemates and one day, perhaps one day soon, they would make that step to become something more.

"I have something I want to show you."

She smiled and tilted her head in curious confusion as he did not Send her a picture. _Oak?_

He shook his head. _No, Lovemate, I want you to see this with your own eyes._

She nodded and with another grin took his hand as he led her into the forest and away from the Holt.

Time had no meaning to Wolfriders in the Now, but the sky had started to brighten with the coming day when Oak slowed them and their wolves as he carefully led her to a break in the trees, and a great cliff edge. Sunspark watched with dazzled eyes as all of Abode stretched out before her and the sky bathed in colors as bright as she was with the rising sun. It was too beautiful for words. _Oh, Oak . . .!_

He smiled and wrapped his strong arms around her, breathing in the scent of her hair. _I like seeing your joy as you see this world which is almost as beautiful as you are . . ._ He paused slightly before continuing, _Lifemate._

She turned in his embrace, her eyes as round as the sun coming up from the edge of the world. _Lifemate._ The word felt strange in her mind, strange, but right. She smiled wide, her eyes filling with happy tears. _My lifemate._

It was the most perfect moment of her life. Of course it had to end.

The wolves howled a brief warning before one of them was cut short with a painful yip. Sunspark cried out in pain as she knew, somehow, that it was her friend who had died suddenly.

Oak let go of her and started towards the forest, to see what had killed the wolf, with his sword in hand and ready when the giant beast, a long-toothed boar, came crashing out of the brush, running directly towards him.

Sunspark raised her spear, but she was too far away from Oak to stop what was happening. The boar never stopped. Whatever had set it running towards them had set it moving quickly enough that it couldn't stop. It caught Oak below the ribcage and carried him with it over the edge of the cliff.

The dawn sky was stained red with the rising sunlight as Sunspark screamed so loudly that she was surprised that it didn't burn out her voice. _OAK!! LIFEMATE!!_

She fell to her knees at the edge of the cliff as Oak's wolf, Greypelt, crept towards her, whining in pain. The boar had caught the female with the edge of a tusk, but the cut was shallow and not life-threatening. Sunspark looked over the edge and saw Oak, miraculously, hanging on to a very small ledge.

He looked up at her and smiled through the pain she knew that he was feeling. _I'm sorry, lifemate, this wasn't part of the plan._

She tried to laugh, but it came out as something closer to a sob. _Hold on, beloved, I'll call the tribe. Maybe we can use some vines or something to pull you up . . ._

Then it happened.

Their eyes met across the distance and Sunspark thought that the entire world had spun around them like it used to do when she was a cub and would twirl herself dizzy. _Bohl?_

Oak's eyes widened in shock at the sound of his own soulname. _High Ones . . . Sher?_

Sunspark sobbed at the answering name. It had happened. Recognition. All she had ever hoped for and dreamed of. Sher belonged to Bohl and Bohl belonged to Sher, together, forever, and a little cub to follow, a piece of each of them made precious and unique.

She reached her hand out to Oak, her Bohl, stretching as far as she could while laying prone against the ground so that she wouldn't fall over herself. Her fingertips could almost reach his hands as he clutched the outcropping of rock that was all that kept him from falling all the way to the bottom.

Desperately she Sent to the tribe, and dimly heard a response. They were on their way, but it was going to be a while, even at a run on their wolves. She caught Oak's eyes. _Hold on, Bohl. The tribe is coming. We'll find a way to save you._

The connection, though, told her much that he couldn't put into words. The boar had knocked the breath from him, and possibly broken ribs in the impact. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to hang on. His hands, even now, were slipping.

He looked up, tears in his eyes as he knew a truth that she was still denying. _I love you, Sher. I love you forever. I will be the breeze that cools your face. I will be the light that warms you._ His hands slipped a little further. _Sher . . ._

It was useless, but she couldn't help it. She stretched as far as she could, making Greypelt whine in concern as she bent over the edge further than before, still flat against the ground. Her fingertips brushed his before his hands lost all strength entirely and let go.

She could feel him falling. She could feel herself screaming. She could hear his voice whispering to her even as he fell to his death. _Survive, Sher, please, for me. Survive and live. See our world, for both of us._

Then Bohl was gone and Sher felt like the sun had died with him.

\---

The tribe found her at the edge of the cliff, with Greypelt beside her, curled up into a ball on her side. She didn't move. She didn't talk. She wouldn't Send. They found her wolf and saved the hide for her. It was all they could do to carry her back to the Holt.

She retreated into the den she had shared with Oak and didn't emerge from it for days. She didn't eat. She probably wasn't sleeping, either. Greypelt stayed close to the friend of his friend, filling the hole left by the loss of her wolf, but a wolf couldn't fill the hole that Bohl had left.

Eventually she crawled out of the den, thin and gaunt, with sunken eyes and sallow skin. She never let the healer touch her. She never let anyone touch her. They all thought that it was just grief that gnawed at her, not unfulfilled Recognition.

Recognition, though, wasn't kind enough to kill her. No matter how much she had wanted it to do so. She survived long enough to feel the effects of the ache wane and eventually disappear. Life returned to normal, sort of.

The spark that had made her live was gone with Oak. She survived, but she couldn't be said to really live. She didn't join with anyone, politely refusing when offered. She didn't take another mate, didn't even try, though more than one worried over the matter.

In a way, Sunspark had died with Oak, even though she still walked and hunted.

And she never dreamed of cubs of her own again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course I couldn't leave the story where it was. So here's the second part of Sunspark's tale. Even clouds that hide the sun must, eventually, pass.

Redtree, the stocky-built healer for this small tribe of Wolfriders, watched Leaf run off to avoid any chores his mother had for him. He then looked over at Sunspark, and sighed sadly. More years than any of them could count had passed since he had watched the tribe, led by Chieftess Arrowfall's father shortly before his death, carry the unresponsive Sunspark back to the Holt after the loss of her mate. Too many turns had passed. He was a Wolfrider, he did not mark the passing of days or years, but he knew that there was an old hurt in her, a festering hurt.

And Redtree was a Healer, not just an Elder.

A hand gently rested on his shoulder. _Lifemate?_ The soft sending was a caress across his mind.

He turned his head to smile at his lifemate, Wolfstar. _Ah, beloved, you heard me?_

She smiled back at him gently. _Sunspark probably heard you._

Redtree sighed again and turned away from the sight of the huntress continuing her work on her new spear. "It's not right, Wolfstar. She's hurting. Her hurt is a great ache in the tribe. I cannot believe it has been allowed to go on this long."

Wolfstar touched his face. "She has always been this way, beloved, so long as I have known her. Only you and Spring and Arrowfall herself remember Sunspark as anything other than silent." She brought their faces close together. _Show me, beloved, what she was like before her sorrow._

With a sigh Redtree brought the memory back to the surface.

\---

There was dancing. Someone had fashioned a flute from a water-reed and someone else had made a drum of sorts from an old tree-trunk. Hunting had been good and everyone had fed well. There had even been a recent Recognition, new life bloomed in the tribe.

In the light of the full moons above, Sunspark stood in the center of the circle, her foot tapping to the rhythm of the music, and then she began moving, a joyful expression given form. Her eyes shined in the moonlight, a smile spread across her face as she reached a hand out to Oak, inviting him to join her.

With an answering smile, he did so, and they danced around each other, somehow completing each other with each step.

\---

Redtree felt a tear slide down his face as he pulled himself out of the memory.

Wolfstar wiped the tear away with a tremulous smile of her own. "I would have liked to know that Sunspark." She paused. "I want to know that Sunspark." There was an undercurrent of determination in her voice. "She is not alone in having lost a mate."

It was true. Wolfstar's own Recognized had died a mere season before the birth of their child, a cub who had grown to adulthood to become a father himself. Her son's son was the rambunctious Leaf, Dagger, lifemated to Shadowbrook the tanner. Redtree had helped her raise her son, and time had made them lifemates by choice.

Redtree nodded. "I will talk to her, though I do not know what good talking will do. It is a conversation we have had before."

\---

Sunspark wsn't avoiding the healer. Not really. She just didn't want to talk to him again and she could tell that he was going to try.

Talking wouldn't bring Oak back. Talking wouldn't fill the aching emptiness in her soul. Why couldn't Redtree just understand? There wasn't any point to it all without Oak, her Bohl. She didn't want anyone but Oak, and he was gone.

Redtree, though, was determined. He followed her on hunts. He was there when she went gathering. He was always somewhere nearby, even when she went out of her way to avoid him. Eventually his patient determination won out and he managed to get her alone.

"You have to stop this."

"Stop what, Healer? I am doing nothing amiss."

He sighed in frustration. "That is just the problem, Sunspark. You are doing nothing, and the nothing that you are doing hurts the tribe."

She refused to meet his eyes. "I hunt. I gather. I do my part for the tribe. How is it that I am hurting anyone?"

He clenched his hands. "Your grief, Sunspark, your endless, soul-sucking, black pit of grief. I can feel the way it drains all of us, pulling at all of us. Even Leaf hesitates now to smile around you. This grief is not the Way!"

She faced him, agony on her face. "Grief is all I have! If Arrowfall would let me I would take a new name from it! I am Grief!"

"No, you are not." He flatly contradicted her, reaching out to take hold of her shoulders. "Oak would not want you to become Grief, not even for him. Oak did not want any of this, not the grief, not the emptiness, not the nothing. I know he loved you too much to want this. I know it as I know my own soul!"

Neither of them expected what happened next.

Their eyes met, in the storm of raging emotions, and the world spun around them. Redtree couldn't believe what was happening to him, the sheer and utter agony he saw in her soul. _Sher?_ High Ones, it was worse than he thought. It wasn't just grief, the loss of a lifemate, that had so traumatized Sunspark. It was unfulfilled Recognition!

Tears filled her eyes. _Karo . . . I'm so sorry, Karo. I . . . I can't . . . not again. I'm not strong enough to survive it again._

Recognition. Somehow it always knew when it was least expected or welcome. After so many turns left unfulfilled, the demand returned and Sher collapsed, sobbing in pain.

Redtree, Karo, went white-faced as he felt her agony reverberate through their link. He had to do something or the pain of this second Recognition would drive her mad. He looked around at the forest. They were too open. The last thing they needed was for another accident to prevent answering Recognition. The Holt was nearby. If he could get her back to the Holt, to safe and secure surroundings, then they could do what they had to do.

It was the most difficult thing he had ever done, but Redtree lifted the sobbing Sunspark onto his wolf and carried her back to the Holt.

\---

The entire tribe, it seemed, poured out of their dens to see what was happening when Redtree and Sunspark returned. Leaf came running up to them, all eagerness and curiosity. He reached out to touch Sunspark's hand and was startled to hear her scream in pain. He jumped back, scared, tears forming quickly in his eyes. "I'm sorry!" he said.

Redtree lifted Sunspark off the wolf. "It's not your fault, Leaf."

Arrowfall tried to help him, but he waved the Chieftess off. "I'll explain later," he promised.

He saw Wolfstar and his eyes pled with her for understanding. _Please . . ._ he Sent, _her den . . ._

Wolfstar nodded and lifted the leather covering for them. _I trust you. Heal her._

Redtree couldn't answer her. He didn't know if this Recognition would salve Sher's broken soul . . . or shatter it completely.

\---

It was a long time before Sunspark emerged from her den. Redtree stayed with her as much as he could, eventually joined by Wolfstar. The three of them would face this healing together.

Redtree told Arrowfall, quietly, what had happened, and the true reason for Sunspark's collapse all those turns ago. That bothered the Chieftess. If she had known that Sunspark's grief was partly from unanswered Recognition . . . But that was a hunt with no game.

For his part, Leaf spent several days convinced that, somehow, he was the reason for Sunspark's collapse. He had touched her and it had hurt. He just knew that it was his fault.

He hid from his mother. He spilled her seeds and dyes on purpose. He put stickers in his father's boots. He grumbled and talked back and yelled at adults. There seemed to be no punishment that he did not, almost, welcome. He was afraid to admit to himself that he hoped that maybe punishing him would make Sunspark better.

He just wanted Sunspark to get better.

They tried to tell him that it wasn't his fault, but Leaf knew better. He was the only cub. It had to be his fault.

\---

The day that Sunspark emerged, she was very weak on her feet. Redtree and Wolfstar helped her walk the few steps out of the den and over to a root to sit. She was very thin, but there was almost a glow to her skin that hadn't been there before, a sparkle to her eyes.

Leaf watched her with round, worried eyes. When she motioned for him, he jumped in fear. He did, though, walk slowly up to her, both hands firmly clenched behind his back. "Yes, Sunspark?"

She met his eyes. "I understand that you have been very disobedient. You have your parents very worried about you."

He nodded slowly. Tears started up in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Sunspark. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. Really, I didn't."

She reached out at gently lifted his chin so she could see his eyes. "I know. It's okay." She took a deep breath. "I'm going to need your help, Leaf, if you think you're big enough."

His eyes went even more round. "My help?"

She nodded. "I'm going to have a cub, a little one who can be a playmate, but you're going to have to try, really try, not to fret your parents so much."

Leaf couldn't believe his ears. "A cub? I won't be the only one anymore?"

Sunspark nodded her head, her eyes twinkling a little more. "But I don't know what cubs are like. You're going to have to help me learn. Can you do that?"

Leaf thought about it for all of three seconds. Then he nodded vehemently. "The first thing you need to know . . ." he grinned wide and mischievously, "is how to smile."

Redtree chuckled at the declaration, but that was nothing compared to Leaf's whoop of joy when the corners of Sunspark's mouth twitched and then lifted in a genuine smile.

"She smiled!" His shout brought curious looks from around the Holt as Wolfriders peeked out to see Leaf running to catch his mother's attention. "Sunspark smiled at ME!"

That, of course, elicited an even stranger reaction as Sunspark tilted her head back and laughed!


End file.
